December 17, 2024

People talk about being kept up all night by some anxiety, and I imagine myself free of that, except this morning I woke wondrous early and could not get back to sleep, the cause being anxiety over the meeting of the GMC planning committee. I don’t think I’m of much use to them, as I want to sing the best music available, and they to illustrate political points with songs from the radio, none of them very good in comparison to the repertoire open to us. B wants to “work toward excluding anything related to church,” which means never performing or rehearsing in a church, and eliminating sacred music from our concerts. I understand the antipathy gay people feel toward religion. I feel it , but am somehow able to get around it and preserve a life of faith and a perspective on Western culture. Such prohibitions are no different from the Nazis’ not paying Mendelssohn, or the Israeli Philharmonic not playing Wagner, policies which we would regard as ignorant, even while duplicating them in our own practice. Not one decision has been made on musical grounds, which I find incomprehensible in a musical organization. We develop some theme– so far political and abstract–then look for pieces that can be thought to illustrate that theme. I played Schubert’s “Serenade” last night, to dead silence, literally no comment at all.  My guess is that we’ll never do a classical piece again. I don’t see how I can be helpful in that environment. I also measure a two hour meeting with B droning on to wear us down until we accept his plans against the work I have to do and the little time I have left to do it. For example, I’ve spent time writing this (to get it out of my system) rather than doing my work.